


An Unexamined Life

by harmony_bites



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harmony_bites/pseuds/harmony_bites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape doesn't appreciate what a wonderful life he's had—Dumbledore makes sure he does—whether he's willing or not. This fic is a collaboration between Zeegrindylows (user ID 1338590 on Fan Fiction Net) and harmonybites.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's a Wonderful Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clare009](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare009/gifts), [refrainofdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=refrainofdreams).



> Disclaimer: © 2007 harmony bites and zeegrindylows. All rights reserved. This work may not be archived, reproduced, or distributed in any format without prior written permission from the authors. This is an amateur non-profit work, and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by J.K.Rowling or any other lawful holder.
> 
> This story is dedicated from me to clare009—and by Grindy to refrainofdreams. It's meant was a Christmas giftee to them and was first posted to Fanfiction Net on 2007. Happy Christmas Clare and Steph and everyone!
> 
> This story actually grew out of an YIM conversation between me and zeegrindylows, my co-writer. I promised Clare a story based on her SSHG artworkWinter's Eve (which can be found on Deviant Art). I needed a reason why Hermione was barefoot. And still do—still owe Clare that story someday. But in the course of the conversation, one fleeting idea behind that caused a mention of _It's a Wonderful Life_. Grindy challenged me. She said if I'd do it, she'd co-write it. The result you see here.
> 
> Note on Source: Americans will probably recognize the source from which we adapted this story, Capra's classic Christmas film, _It's a Wonderful Life_. The source from which the film was adapted can be found online if you google it—Philip Van Doren Stern's short story "The Greatest Gift."
> 
> We want to thank renitaleandra for her fantastic beta. My usual betas couldn't do it given the time constraints, and she bravely stepped in and betaed away even on Christmas Eve. Thanks also to lifeasanamazon for her Britpick!

**An Unexamined Life**

* * *

_**by ZeeGrindylows and harmonybites** _

**CHAPTER ONE**

* * *

The corridors of Hogwarts were decked with garlands of pine strung with fairy lights, and Professor Flitwick had charmed bells to chime at every turn of a corner. But the Christmas decorations brought Severus no cheer.

He bumped into a wall and leaned on it for a while, his cheek to the cool stone. He'd never before been drunk in his life. It was one way he strove not to be like his father. Not even in the worst days of Voldemort had he allowed the indulgence. But with the pain of his utter inability to protect his family from what was to come, he'd sought it out. The first drink had done nothing. The second produced a nice floating feeling. The third had given him what seemed like a brilliant idea. The fourth and fifth had been needed to give him that famous liquid courage.

Gripped in his hand was a vial of potion made with Basilisk venom. Not the most painless of poisons, but being quicker than Nagini's had been, it would do. Severus hoped it wouldn't leave too gruesome a corpse to find. He was of two minds about that. Would it be better if they never found him at all?

Something in him flinched at that idea. He'd promised Hermione that he'd never leave her, and he couldn't bear to have her think that he'd run from her. But he couldn't bear to think of her finding him, either. Would her eyes fill with horror? With sorrow? Or would she hate him? For her sake, it would have been better if he didn't face the choice between a dishonored life or an unmourned death. It would have been better if he'd simply never been born at all.

He paced a part of the corridor, back and forth—tightly, as if he were in a cage—circling between how to end his life and his regret of what a mess he'd made of it. How had it come to such a pass that he could be sure that even his children would be better off without him? A crack of light showing the outline of a door stopped him in his tracks. As he stared, the light grew until he found himself squinting, yet he also found himself stepping forward and fumbingly turning the knob.

Upon entering, he saw what appeared to be the cottage in Devon that Hermione and he rented for the summer, the first place where he'd had built nothing but good memories. There was the couch Miranda had transfigured into a pony last year. Right there on the wall, even painted over, he could see the singe marks where Hypatia, without even a wand, had first conjured fire in a fit of temper at three. And their eldest, Brian had been conceived … well, in any number of possible places about the rooms …

A warm breeze made the curtains flutter, tickling his nostrils with the tang of the sea. He could hear the faint sounds of the ocean, the plaintive cries of a curlew. Sounds that had once filled him with peace but now imbued him with melancholy.

He looked out the window. Sunset. Of course.

He held up the vial in the fading light. The potion shimmered as he watched the liquid gently sloshing. If one could not bottle fame or brew glory, at least he could put a stopper in disgrace and disaster. He uncorked the vial and breathed deeply. The smell was cloying, perfumelike. He touched the vial to his lips, and was about to tip the poison into his mouth when the vial shattered in his hand, sending shards of glass into his palm.

"Severus, you astonish me," said a voice behind him that made him shiver. For twenty years, he'd only heard that voice coming from a flat sheet of stretched canvas. Now, it resounded with a vitality heard only in life.

He swallowed and slowly turned. "How could you be—" He wasn't that drunk—was he?

"My boy," Dumbledore said softly. "This is the Room of Requirement. Obviously, you needed me—"

"Like I need a hole in my head."

"Yes, that would help you attain your goal. Though some Firewhisky seems to have got you off to a good start." Dumbledore regarded him out of his half-moon spectacles with an unblinking gaze, and the bright blue eyes seemed to seek out his like a searchlight, exposing all at a glance. He wore a robe of all the House colors, which, Severus thought bitterly, was probably the first time the wizard had ever united the Houses in his person.

"What do you know of it, you meddlesome fool? For all you know I was taking Pepperup."

Dumbledore shook his head, his eyes overly bright. "There has been far too much hurt between us, and I am keenly aware that it is mostly of my doing, but at least in the past there was always honesty."

"Not equally."

Dumbledore sighed. He healed Severus' cut hand with a swish of his wand. "Really, Severus—on Christmas Eve, of all times …?"

"What time would be better?" Severus snorted. "Don't tell me the all-knowing wizard hasn't kept up with all that's happened this past week."

"The death of a child is a tragedy, but you're not responsible—"

"Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater. Umbridge's pet Auror is very interested in the fact that it was McLaggen's boy who was killed. Given the way that he and Hermione clashed whilst she was in the Ministry, and my famous tendency to hold a grudge—"

"Yes, Hermione indeed. Think, man. Of her, of your children."

"For whom else would I do this?" Severus paced in front of the old wizard. He paused a minute. It seemed to take so much effort to enunciate each word. "Umbridge kindly owled me a copy of the next _Daily Prophet_. They're starting all the old rumors again, and with quite an interesting twist this time. Skeeter writes of the 'sinister implications' of how I took up with a former student so much younger than myself. She's actually suggesting that I must have used Dark Magic to attract Hermione, and that the relationship is probably scandalously 'long standing.' Now that Hermione is, as Skeeter puts it, 'mature' it's suggested that I might be looking elsewhere, that the accident was used to cover up …"

"My boy, as ugly as—"

"Nor is that all, my dear Albus. I received a visit from Lucius Malfoy today. He wants me to appoint him to Longbottom's position of Deputy Headmaster. He intimated that our Herbology professor's provision of the wrong potion ingredient to Professor Macmillan was no accident—that he and I colluded. He wants Draco to replace Macmillan as Potions master. I can't allow that. I _shall_ not allow the Malfoys a foot in the door of this school."

"Then fight this. You're a good fighter."

Severus sneered. "Not this kind of fight. Not one that needs … popularity. If I'm gone, that will suck all the wind out of them. They cannot harm Hermione or the children if I am not acting as the scapegoat in every mishap at the school." He sagged against the wall. "When have I done anyone any good in the end?"

"Surely—"

"I bonded myself to a madman who promised to eat death, and it consumed my dearest friend. I spent decades acting like a sort of Dementor, sucking the joy out of my students. I killed _you_." He poked at Dumbledore's chest with a finger.

"I _asked_ you to. Severus, you've proved yourself a man who can a man that can admit his mistakes, feel remorse, make recompense. How few have the courage—"

"Ah, yes, courage, the cardinal Gryffindor virtue—"

"To pluck out the splinter in your soul, to let the wound bleed until it can be safely healed does take more courage than almost any man or woman—of any House—can boast. But if there's any sin akin to the refusal to make amends, it's the refusal to find yourself worthy of forgiveness, to lose hope."

Severus shut his eyes tightly. "Anything I've done to repair things is like bailing out a sinking ship with a teaspoon." He clenched and unclenched his fists. "I was in a rage when I came home from seeing Lucius. The children were decorating, chattering questions at me and … I was … cruel as of old. I could see the fear in their faces when I smashed a goblet on the floor. I should be able to recognize that expression. I used to enjoy bullying my students and took pride in commonly being their boggart, only this time it was my own child I goaded to tears. Even Hermione called me a bastard." He turned out to be his father after all. He was better off without his father; his children would be better off without him. "It would have been better if I had never been born."

Dumbledore's eyes widened. "Brilliant!" he said, stroking his beard. "Just the thing, my boy."

"What is?"

Dumbledore waved his wand over him. "It is as you desired. Severus Snape, you have never been born."

* * *

 

Miles away from Hogwarts, Harry Potter forced open the door to his office. He groaned. His desk was so covered with letters, memos, notes, Christmas gifts, and back issues of _The Daily Prophet_ that it could no longer hold them all, and his floor was beginning to be equally swallowed up by the ever-growing pile.

He waded through the mess, and began to make an attempt at sorting things.

He'd been away these past two weeks chasing rumors that Rodolphus Lestrange was living in Argentina. Wild claims had been made that Lestrange had got hold of Voldemort's 'eighth Horcrux.' It was, in Harry's opinion, an absolute waste of time, and he was glad to be back in Britain, where he most definitely belonged.

Five minutes into his cleaning spree, he decided he needed a break. Digging through a newly formed and rather lopsided stack of _Prophets_ , he pulled out the most recent issue. To his surprise, he was greeted by a photo of Severus, glaring up from the page with all the menace that Harry remembered from his youth.

_FOUL PLAY AT HOGWARTS? HEADMASTER SUSPECTED OF SABOTAGE  
By Rita Skeeter_

_Dear Readers, we are here today to ask you one simple question: ARE YOUR CHILDREN SAFE AT HOGWARTS?_

_Severus Snape, notorious ex-Death Eater, and now Headmaster of Hogwarts, is yet again embroiled in controversy after the death of a student in a Potions accident on Monday. Junior Professor Ernie Macmillan, 37, expressed his regret over what he termed "A tragic accident."_

_BUT WAS IT?_

_Upon further investigation, this reporter has learned that the source of the accident was an ingredients mixup. While demonstrating the proper method for brewing the Polyjuice Potion, Junior Professor Macmillan added redwort in place of boomslang skin. As any of us who completed sixth-year potions will immediately recognize, this addition is a recipe for disaster._

_Macmillan is known as a conscientious and careful Professor. Therefore, we must ask again, was this truly an accident? Or, are more sinister things afoot at Hogwarts?_

_(Continued on pages 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 23)_

He didn't bother looking for the continuation of the article. He was far too familiar with Skeeter's particular brand of mudslinging to need more than a guess at its contents. Instead, he turned his attention to another piece of paper he'd noticed—a letter from Hermione, marked 'urgent.'

Moments after Flooing in to Hogwarts, he found his arms full of a shaking Hermione. He patted her hair, hardly able to comprehend her words through her sobs. Her letter had begged for the loan of his Marauder's Map—which, in one shining moment of sanity, he had _not_ given to his son James.

From the corner of his eye, he saw three faces peering at him from different heights through a crack in the door. Harry jerked his head, indicating to Hermione that they had spies among them. Brian Snape had already been sorted into Slytherin with Albus Severus—Harry was betting that before the Hat was through, Severus and Hermione's two daughters would join him there.

Hermione grabbed Harry by the hand and pushed him into an adjoining bedroom, then towards a dresser. She opened a drawer and pointed to the family clock hidden inside. "I didn't want the children seeing this," she said. Snape's hand pointed to 'mortal peril.'

Harry handed over the Marauder's Map and looked over Hermione's shoulder as she unfolded it, tapped it, and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The name Severus Snape was visible in the Room of Requirement. "At least we know the git is all right," Harry muttered.

Hermione glared at him. "All right?" She tapped the clock with a trembling hand. "Then why is it pointing there? And don't call him that. You aren't eleven anymore."

"There's nothing in that room that can harm him."

"Oh, quite. Tell that to Crabbe's ghost. And there's himself—Severus has always been his own worst enemy."

"But he wouldn't do anything that would hurt you or the children." Harry clenched his teeth. "I already promised him that if he ever did—"

"You don't know what this week has been like—for both of us."

Harry looked at her bloodshot, swollen eyes. "I can imagine."

"Oh, and Harry, we argued, and I said terrible things—"

"Which I'm sure he deserved."

Hermione sniffed and stretched her lips upwards but it came out looking more like a grimace. "Yes, he did. But I didn't perhaps have the most brilliant timing."

Severus had become a friend, but that didn't mean Harry hadn't worried at times that the man was a 'dry drunk'—venom glands still intact—even if he kept his fangs retracted most times by sheer force of will.

And Harry had wondered over the years how often Hermione provided that will. Admittedly, he'd felt like that less and less often over the years. Severus seemed, against all odds, to be … happy. Even more extraordinary, Severus had made Hermione happy, and that was more than Ron had been able to do in the five years of their volatile relationship.

"Severus has more lives than any number of kneazles, and I promise—now that I'm home—if this wasn't an accident, I'll find out who's behind it." He grinned. "Things were so much simpler when we were students. I'd just suspect Snape had done it, or the next nearest Slytherin."

"Yes, and you were always wrong."

"Good thing I've seen the light, then." Harry heard a whirring sound and looked down. The hand on the clock spun around wildly, then settled on 'Traveling.'

"What?" Harry said, glancing back at the Map. "But he's still in the room."

* * *

 

The room dissolved around them, leaving only Severus and Dumbledore standing side by side. Severus had time only to realize he'd lost his alcohol-induced haze before things began to reappear, different this time—and all too familiar.

"What are you doing to me? What is this, Dumbledore?" he hissed through his teeth.

"I think you know," said Dumbledore, looking around with sad eyes at the interior of Spinner's End.

"I know that you're a mad old fool. Let me out. I want to see Hermione."

"Hermione has no idea who you are."

Severus blinked. "Don't be absurd. I'm her husband."

"You are not. You were never born, therefore you could never have married her."

"Dumbledore, I'm not joking—"

"Nor am I," said Dumbledore sharply, rapping Severus on the head with his wand. "Silence. They are coming."

Severus felt the familiar cold trickle of a Disillusionment Charm and watched as Dumbledore Disillusioned himself, as well. A moment later, Tobias and Eileen Snape entered the room, a violent argument already well under way. Severus flinched back, reminded all too strongly of his argument with Hermione. The bitter words that flew back and forth stung his ears just as sharply as they had when he'd been a small child.

"Worthless, lying little _witch_ ," snarled Tobias. "I should have known before I married you. I should have known you'd be good for nothing. You're not even fit for breeding." He spat at her, flecks of spittle flying across her unlovely face and marring it.

She stared at him, wild eyed, tears streaming down her face. "I never lied to you." She sobbed, her words part of a script that Severus had heard endless times before. "I never lied. I swear to you."

"You never told the whole truth!"

"I did! I did—eventually!"

"Not soon enough," growled Tobias, advancing on her. Severus could smell alcohol on his breath, and he knew all the signs. Tobias was in rare form, and his fists were going up again. "Maybe you're more of a liar even than I think. Maybe you're not a witch at all. A real witch could stop me from doing this—"

Severus turned away. He'd never been able to stomach the sight of his mother being beaten. Her cries were louder even than those he remembered. It made him feel sick. In the years since his father's death and Severus' reconciliation with his mother, he'd somehow managed to convince himself that those memories had been greatly exaggerated, as childhood memories so often are.

"Enough, Dumbledore," he said. "Why are you torturing me?"

"Because you need to see, Severus."

"I have no need to see this. I don't need _you_ to warn me how much of him there is within myself—"

Dumbledore's hand fumbled invisibly onto Severus' arm and rested there for a moment. "That is not what I wish to show you."

How long they stood there, Severus did not know. Eventually, the horrible screams died down. Still, Severus could not look; not until he heard Tobias' heavy tread leaving the room. Then, he turned, and he nearly screamed himself.

His mother lay on the floor in a puddle of blood, her face unrecognizable and swollen, her chest barely moving. He could not breathe. Perhaps it was a boggart. Had Dumbledore somehow recalled to Severus' mind the boggart of his childhood, and caused it to come forth? He had seen enough people die in his lifetime to know that she, his mother, was dying.

"This never happened," he said hoarsely, clinging to what he knew the facts to be. "This never happened, Dumbledore. Why are you doing this to me?"

"It did happen," said Dumbledore very sadly, "because you were not there. Tobias felt no restraint and had not even the slightest compunction about beating his wife to death, the wife who was not only a witch and a liar, but barren. He suspected that she had somehow intentionally made herself so, to spite him. He intended to punish her."

"Of course I was there! My mother was not barren, Dumbledore, I am her son!"

"You are nobody's son, Severus. You were never born at all."

"If you're not mad, then I am. Let me out of here."

"Yes," said Dumbledore musingly, "perhaps it is time to move on."

Again, the room changed. Now it was simply a Hogwarts classroom, filled with desks. The door was slightly ajar, and in the hallway, Severus could hear a strange noise, like wailing. He went to the door. As Headmaster, responsible for keeping the peace in his school, it was his duty to investigate its source.

There was a huge queue of students outside, clustered around Hagrid. He was holding something—or, Severus realized, with a sinking feeling, some _one_. If another student had died, the ignominy and scandal would be unspeakable. He groaned.

But it was not for the Headmaster of Hogwarts to wallow in despair while there were students to be attended to. He caught sight of Marcus Flint and, taking time only to note that something was vaguely different about him, grabbed him by the shoulder. "What has happened?" he asked.

Flint gave him a cool, appraising look, then licked his teeth and shrugged. "Harry Potter is dead," he said.

* * *

 

"It's back to 'mortal peril,'" said Hermione, chewing on her lower lip. Her teeth had gouged through it, and Harry could see blood welling up before her tongue flicked out to clean it away. "Harry, what's going on?"

"I don't know," said Harry, frowning at the map. "I'd say it was an error, but—well, the map never lies."

"There's got to be a way that we can get in there and go after him."

Harry sat down, taking off his glasses and wearily rubbing his eyes. "I don't think there is, Hermione. Unless we know exactly what he was thinking when he went in, we can't get into the room after him. The most we can do is to wait for him to come out."

" _If_ he comes out," said Hermione, voicing the thought that lingered behind Harry's words.

"When," Harry said bracingly, but he wasn't sure he believed it.

* * *

 

"Dead?" said Severus, aghast. "What's happened?"

"Quidditch." Flint scowled. "They're saying his broom was cursed. I think he just turned out not to be as good as they all said he was."

Severus frowned. Harry's broom had indeed been cursed once, but that had been years and years ago, and he hadn't died. He hadn't even fallen. There was no Quidditch match scheduled, and certainly not one in which Harry would be participating.

Flint walked away. Severus turned to Dumbledore to ask what the meaning of it was, but Dumbledore had disappeared—Disillusioned again, if the slight jostle of an invisible elbow at his side was any indication. Severus scowled at the invisible headmaster, who had no right to be there at all, and looked around for someone else who could explain.

But none of the students seemed to know, and most of them seemed to be inclined to simply ignore him. The press of bodies around Hagrid was so close that Severus could not get near enough to see for himself if it was really true. Harry dead? And killed at Hogwarts? It was unthinkable that the most popular and powerful Auror in the Ministry, the hero of the wizarding world, should somehow die at Hogwarts, especially not now. And if he'd died from a cursed broom—for Harry Potter to be murdered at his school was the worst possible thing that Severus could imagine.

He thought suddenly of Hermione, and how she would feel when she learned of it, and he groaned, his heart aching for her.

"This way," said Dumbledore abruptly, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him down a passage. Severus soon found himself sneaking up behind another Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, and, most improbably, Antonin Dolohov.

"He's really dead?" said Minerva, aghast.

"Alas," said the second Dumbledore, who was garbed not in the House-colored robes, but in the traditional purple that Severus recalled so well, "and at the hand of someone who is even now in the school."

"I do not understand," said Dolohov. "Dumbledore, it would take an incredibly powerful wizard to curse a broom, so strongly none of our efforts could counter it in time, and one with a vendetta against Potter. There is no student here with that sort of ability, and you can't seriously think that a professor would make an attempt on a student's life."

"Harry Potter was a great wizard," said Dumbledore sadly, "young though he may have been. There are those who wished him dead."

Minerva gave a loud sniff and wiped her eyes. "I'm glad that Lily and James aren't alive to see what has become of their son," she said, sniffing again. "Eleven years of abuse by Muggles, only to be killed when he finally makes it back to his own kind. I blame myself. I pushed to allow him on the Quidditch team in spite of his age—"

"That is enough, I think," said the Dumbledore who accompanied Severus, taking him by the elbow once more and leading him into a quiet passage. "Do you begin to understand?"

"No," said Severus, with complete honesty, looking back over his shoulder at the other Dumbledore and his companions. "I don't understand in the slightest, Dumbledore, except that I am clearly going mad."

Dumbledore smiled merrily at him. "Oh, I don't think there's cause to fear anything so dramatic as that. You are simply being given an opportunity, Severus—a very great opportunity indeed. You are being given a chance to see how the world would be if you had never been born."

"Ridiculous," said Severus promptly. "I'm going mad." Although, for a madman, he felt an extraordinary amount of physical well-being. He moved, for once, without the aches and occasional sharp pains that were a legacy of a multitude of injuries over the years. His hand went to his neck, finding smooth skin instead of the heavy ridges once there from Nagini's bite. A prickling chill ran down his spine. Surely—this could be so many things: a vision, a hallucination, a potion or boggart.

Dumbledore seemed to read his mind—or possibly his gesture. "You were never born, never lived, never suffered or were injured. If you went to a mirror, you'd find you look much younger than you did less than an hour ago."

"If I was never born, Lily and James Potter would have lived, Harry wouldn't have been raised by the Dursleys. Yet Minerva said—"

Dumbledore shook his head. "You weren't solely responsible for her death, and others put the Prophecy in play. Without you as our spy among the Death Eaters, Rookwood remained undetected as a mole in the Ministry ranks. His position in the Department of Mysteries allowed him to smuggle Voldemort there to retrieve Sibyll's prophecy. Indeed, Voldemort learned the whole of the prophecy, not only part because you withheld the rest when he immediately threatened Lily."

Severus snorted. "Trying to assuage my guilty conscience? Whitewash what I did?"

"Hardly. You have done your share of wrong, and you're the better for knowing so. Remorse can be a great engine for change. But not everything is within our control—not even mine. The test, I believe, is if in the end, for all your mistakes, you've left the world better for you being in it."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Did you pass?"

"I believe that's still under review. Perhaps helping an old friend can tip the balance?"

"You're daft." Severus knew he was in for it when Dumbledore favored him with that infernal twinkle before he waved his arm and Severus found the room dissolving around him yet again.

* * *

 

Harry strode along the corridors, on his way to see Neville in greenhouse three. Ginny had Flooed through to take care of the children while Hermione had headed to the library to do research on the Room of Requirement, with the clock tucked under one arm, and the Map gripped in her hand. She said that, after checking some references, she'd try the ghosts and the portraits. She was determined to find a way in, or at least to find out what could be happening to Severus.

He frowned. Something was different than he remembered, something he found it hard to put his finger on. Despite the urgency of his errand, he stopped for a moment to lean on the wall and observe. If he was to figure out what had happened here, he needed to understand the new currents in the school. As he stood there, one girl out of a giggling gaggle of them—he believed that was the correct term—broke off from her group and ran to him, breathless.

She gripped a book tightly, then shoved it toward him, as if she was trying to out run her nerves. Harry was familiar with all the different responses to his presence, this one common among them.

"C … could … could you sign this for me, sir?"

" _Hogwarts, A History?_ Am I in there already? Who should I inscribe this to?"

"Violet Avery."

He gave her a sharp look at the name, noted the Slytherin tie, then signed the book with a flourish and handed it back to her. "My best friend loved this book when she was a student here."

"Professor Granger. She's my favorite teacher."

Harry peered at her closely. She could be a fifth year. "Did you know Sean McLaggen?"

She blinked back tears and her voice was choked. "Yes, sir. He was very brave—he shoved Professor Macmillan aside when the flames in the cauldron flared."

Hermione told him it had been a demonstration—and if it was true that Sean McLaggen put himself in danger, he probably wasn't a specific target—assuming it wasn't all a genuine accident. "Did you notice anything … odd?"

"No." She hugged the book to her. "The Headmaster, he'll be all right won't he? There are these rumors that he's close to being arrested."

A voice to his right said, "Harry Potter's the Ministry's top Auror—he'll set things to rights—the Headmaster will be all right. Isn't that so, sir?"

A Hufflepuff tie. That a Slytherin would be concerned about Severus wasn't surprising, even if he, Harry, hadn't expected to have a fan in Slytherin himself—aside from Albus Severus and Brian—but a Hufflepuff?

It finally clicked into place what he had found odd. The groups he'd come across had been mixed. Even the students having lunch in the Great Hall had been mingled together, not keeping to their own House tables. He hadn't been back at Hogwarts, except for brief visits, for years, hadn't had a chance to note the changes, although Hermione, and even his own children, had hinted at them. There were even Muggle-borns now in Slytherin who were open about their ancestry.

Must count as one of the signs of the apocalypse, that. And Severus and Neville were at the heart of the change—a change under threat because of this tragedy.

"We'll set things to rights." He had kept saying something like that in the last couple of hours to Hermione. He wished that he truly believed it.

* * *

 

When the room stopped spinning around him, Snape sat down on the floor and squeezed his eyes shut. Wherever they were smelled fetid and dank. He could feel rough stones against his back, and a dull clanging and rattling reached his ears. He drew in his knees and wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. "Enough … just enough. I don't know what you're playing at, but none of this is real. It's shadow play, no more substantial than a boggart or the visions of the Mirror of Erised."

"Which I had to hide after Lily died, because you'd spend every hour you could in front of it, preferring dreams of a life with Lily to reality. You promised me after I found you with it that even if you came across that mirror again, you'd turn away, wouldn't dwell so much on your dreams that you forgot to live. But now, dwelling on nightmares of what might never be, of things just as ephemeral as those happier fantasies, have shut your eyes to life again."

A hand shook his shoulder.

"Severus," Dumbledore whispered, "open your eyes."

Reluctantly, he did, and rather preferred the view with them shut. _Azkaban_.

"Why here?"

Dumbledore put a finger to his lips and Disillusioned them again, as traveling as they did seemingly dissolved the spell. Turning the corner was what Severus was coming to think of as Doppledore, Dumbledore's counterpart in whatever alternate universe he'd been dragged into. He was accompanied by a prison officer with jangling keys. The 'real' Dumbledore pulled Snape to his feet with surprising strength and, with a push, urged him to follow the two figures—which they did, following the other Dumbledore into a dark cell the officer had opened.

Severus squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light.

"Hagrid," the other Dumbledore said softly. "I'm sorry there's no good news."

The half-giant's head scraped the low ceiling as he tried to rise at Dumbledore's presence. "Beggin' yer pardon, Headmaster."

"It is I who should be begging your pardon. It should be clear from Ginevra Weasley's disappearance and presumed death that you are not responsible for all that has transpired at Hogwarts."

Hagrid sobbed, wiping his nose on his grimy sleeve. "Poor lass. Nah, yer not to blame. An' yeh have ter tell Neville he's not ter blame either, yeh mind. They give me his messages, but I can't owl back." Hagrid sobbed again, then blew his nose on his robe. "The boy's saying as how he's 'almost a squib' he makes fer a poor 'chosen one.'"

Having heard enough, Severus left the cell. He could hear Dumbledore following after him. He turned abruptly, colliding with the old man. "And just what's the point of this?" he asked. "How does my not being born possibly lead to this?"

"Harry."

Severus sneered. "Yes, _Harry_ , our hero. _He_ was the necessary man, Dumbledore, not me."

"Severus, we each touch upon many lives. Yours touched Harry's at several points. He would have died several times over in his first year without you."

Severus took a shaky breath. "So you turned to Neville next as the possible savior named in the prophecy? Of course you did. You believed that perhaps Voldemort had yet to mark him as his equal." He grunted. "Neville Longbottom, a Gryffindor tried and true."

"Which was the problem."

Severus quirked an eyebrow. "You astonish me."

"I know I have not always been appreciative of the qualities of the other houses, particularly Slytherin."

Snape snorted at that. " _No_. Really?"

"Yet it was the Slytherin in Harry that often won through. A certain disregard for rules, the sort of ambition that saw himself as the one that could, that _must_ make a difference. Neville is brave, but he didn't take the steps Harry did to investigate the heir of Slytherin, and Neville wasn't a Parselmouth with the ability to enter the Chamber of Secrets. He was also a very solitary boy, no part of any trio."

"Harry always was the glue between them all."

"More than you would suspect."

"What of Voldemort?"

"You have but to ask, my boy."

Severus groaned, anticipating just how he was going to get the answer to his question as once again his surroundings dissolved around him.

Dumbledore reapplied the Disillusionment Charm as soon as they reappeared. Gritting his teeth, having determined not to be shaken by whatever sights would meet him next, Severus' resolve was shaken as soon as his senses steadied, showing him a room that couldn't be farther removed from Azkaban. High, gilded ceilings sported a fresco depicting Salazar Slytherin taking leave of Hogwarts: Malfoy Manor.

But what really rooted him to the spot was the sight of the young man at the center of the room, surveying his surroundings with piercing eyes. Voldemort. But not the Voldemort of the slit nose and red eyes as Severus remembered him in later days, but one seemingly untouched by dark magic. This was Voldemort as he appeared from his school photos of his days as Head Boy at Hogwarts. This, realized Severus, feeling sick, was Voldemort restored out of the pages of the diary that sucked the life out of a young girl.

About him were, unmasked, many of the inner circle of Death Eaters—but there were faces there that even by this point should have been in Azkaban—or dead. The Lestranges were there, Barty Crouch, Jr., Rookwood, Dolohov, Mulciber, Rosier, Wilkes. Faces, he slowly realized, of Death Eaters that he had helped capture, or had informed upon.

In a corner, Nagini slurped milk from a china bowl. If only the damn snake had done his job, Severus would be free of all his problems today. At his thought, Dumbledore frowned, as if every thought of Severus' own flitted through to his brain without benefit of Legilimency. Severus sighed. If that were so, the old man would probably keep putting on these shows forever until he deemed Severus had learned his lesson.

"Dobby," Lucius said, in a low, menacing voice, "I told you our _best_ wine. Now, I suggest you hurry to the cellar and back, or I'll feed you to the Master's pet."

Dobby scampered off, bumping into Rookwood, and giving a high squeak as he Disapparated, no doubt in search of that best elf-made wine.

Voldemort breathed deeply and beamed at all in the room. "Dumbledore, it seems, will be able to keep Hogwarts open—for now. But we are not displeased. It can be even easier to gather together all the pretty eggs to crack when they're all in one basket." The smile, the voice, were charming.

Somehow that was far more frightening than the snakelike face and hissing voice Severus had known. Charm, Severus knew, could ensnare and bewitch, could be far more dangerous than a visage of horror and a voice to freeze the blood.

His heart pounding, Severus hoped there really was no sense in which what he was experiencing was real.

* * *

 

"Harry, I just don't know what happened. I'm at my wit's end," Neville said. "Don't you think we've gone over and over this? Both Ernie and I contributed our memories to the Pensieve. Severus and the two of us roamed there for hours and hours, looking, going back two days before the incident, trying to find the smallest clue."

Ernie Macmillian kept running his hand over his face. "I just wouldn't make that kind of mistake—even if Neville had supplied redwort rather than boomslang. I prepared the ingredients myself, in front of the whole class." His voice rose, taking on a whining quality. "I'm a Potions Master—trained by the two most illustrious Potions Masters in Britain, if not Europe. Yes, I understand how these things can happen … how they happen …" he muttered to himself.

Harry had the impression that he'd been repeating that to himself for hours. The usually fastidious Macmillian looked like he'd slept in his clothes. His hair was uncombed, under his eyes were circles so dark he looked like he had been punched.

Neville gazed directly at him. "This is my cockup, or mine and Ernie's, if it's anyone's, yet it's been Severus that the Aurors have been all over. What's going on, Harry?"

* * *

 

When the world next re-formed around Severus, they were in Diagon Alley. It wasn't long before the start of term, judging by the clear blue skies and warm weather, sometimes seen in late summer, and the number of young people in Hogwarts uniforms carrying books. His eyes scanned the crowd idly, then froze on one bushy-haired figure as she came into view.

He swallowed his half-cried call of her name, stopped his half-step towards her. This was not his Hermione. She was a girl, rather, and only in her early teens, if that.

Back when she had been his student, Severus had barely registered Hermione's existence except as a hanger-on of the golden boy, a girl who constantly parroted her textbooks as if she'd cast a spell to pour out their words from her mouth. Now he gazed at her, and even though at this age she was like a seed to the blooming flower, his chest compressed, making it hard to breathe.

Ignoring Dumbledore's call to him to stop, he wove in and out of the crowd, trying to get closer, finally drawing close to her as she stood by a shop window.

Severus had noticed something odd about her gait. She had appeared to be limping.

"You weren't there to make the Mandrake Draught," whispered a familiar voice beside him, seemingly out of the air. "The Hogwarts Potions Master, Dolohov—"

"He's a Death Eater—he probably deliberately contaminated it." His eyes widened, and he turned his head towards Dumbledore. "He was at Hogwarts because he's Potions Master? You didn't—you hired him?"

"Well, not precisely myself, you understand."

"Your other self did. And I always thought that the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position explained how you could hire people like Quirrell and Crouch without noticing what was under your nose."

"In Defense Against the Dark Arts, as well as with Potions, the problem, alas, was often finding anyone qualified—especially with Defense Against the Dark Arts, which had the deserved reputation of being cursed, and which we were forced to fill anew every year. And Mandrake Draught, like Wolfsbane, is very difficult to brew—"

"So Dolohov could have just botched it." Severus felt sick. If this were even an alternate version of events, then someplace, somewhere there was a Hermione, his vibrant, active Hermione, who was … "The disability isn't permanent, is it?" he asked, his voice thick.

"Over time, this kind of injury ordinarily lessens."

Hermione plucked the sleeve of a passing redhead. "Ron."

"Hermione." The boy's voice wasn't ever particularly warm, but now it sounded colder than Severus had ever heard it before.

"How are your mum and dad doing?"

Ron shrugged, his mouth turned down. "Dad won a bundle of galleons, and we had a good time in Egypt with Bill, trying to forget that Ginny ever existed."

"Oh, Ron, I'm sure it's not like that. They just probably wanted a chance for the family to all be together—"

"Together?" Ron's laugh held no mirth. It sounded rusty, as if he were corroded inside.

No, Severus, realized, Weasley's voice was not cold. It was numb, with the kind of brittleness that would crack at any warmth, so you pushed any aside before it could touch you. Severus had heard that tone in his own voice enough times to recognize it.

"Together is what we'll never be. Percy blames Dumbledore, and I—"

"Why, that's ridiculous—"

"It's not ridiculous!" Ron shouted. People around them gave them sidelong looks, and Ron brushed roughly past Hermione, causing her to drop two of her books.

Without thinking, Severus stooped down and picked them up, then handed them to her.

He stared at her, and she returned his scrutiny with equal intensity. "Do I know you?" she asked, with a spark of the curiosity that he had learned to find so endearing.

He swallowed, and, not trusting himself to speak, just shook his head.

"Hermione Granger." She held out her hand confidently, straight out.

"Severus Snape."

Her hand was so small, so warm in his. He took a bit longer to let go than he should have, and she gave him an odd look, then a small smile, before she turned and limped away. Every halting step she took twisted his gut tighter in sympathy.

She'd be all right. She was Hermione Granger, and in whatever universe, Severus was sure that meant she'd sweep all aside. He wished he could call her back and tell her that—that no matter what, he knew she'd overcome anything life could throw at her, apologize to her for not having seen how brightly she shone as a student, for all the small cruelties he'd inflicted on his own Hermione when she was that age.

And, if Voldemort was on the rise, for all the much greater cruelties he wasn't in a position now to prevent.

**To be continued**


	2. Night Before Christmas

Disclaimers, notes and beta credits may be found in Chapter One.

An Unexamined Life

by ZeeGrindylows and harmonybites

CHAPTER TWO

Again, reality shimmered out of existence and then shimmered back. They were in yet another place that Severus had seen before, one he had no wish to ever return to.

The full Wizengamot sat in state, gazing down at the solitary man who sat in chains beneath them. He was ragged and scarred, far thinner and dirtier than Severus had ever seen him before, but he recognized the face. Remus Lupin was on trial.

Lupin whimpered softly, and twisted in his chair, trying to tear with his fingernails at the chains where they touched his skin. Severus took a step closer and shuddered. They had chained him with silver. Little question, then, whether his secret was still safe. Huge, ugly welts had formed on his skin where the silver touched it. Soon, the skin would begin to bubble and burn. Severus could already smell traces of the acrid scent of singeing flesh in the air.

"Remus John Lupin," intoned a voice, "you are hereby charged with concealing your werewolf status, displaying callous carelessness as to the well-being and safety of the students of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You are further charged with the murders of Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew."

Remus groaned, closing his eyes.

"First witness for the prosecution, Lucius Malfoy, of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. Does the defendant have any witnesses?"

Remus raised hunted eyes to the faces of the Wizengamot and shook his head. Severus saw his eyes move over the crowd that had come to try him, and rest briefly on the face of Albus Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. That Dumbledore was looking down at him as impassively as if they had never met before.

Lucius Malfoy entered the room, impeccably groomed, in his best robes, his cane gripped in one gloved hand. He was sworn in, and took his seat, crossing his legs casually and leaning back in his chair, a self-satisfied little smile tugging at his lips.

"You are Lucius Gaius Malfoy, of Malfoy Manor?"

"I am."

"State your relationship with the defendant."

"I am head of the Board of Governors at Hogwarts. The defendant was, until recently, Defense Against the Dark Arts professor there."

"And your complaint?"

He sniffed haughtily, removing his gloves with exaggerated, calculated movements and looking down at his fingernails. "It has come to my attention that the … accused is a werewolf." He sneered down at Remus as if he were the filthiest piece of dirt he'd ever seen. "As head of the Board, it is my responsibility to insist that charges be brought against him for reckless endangerment of the students of the school."

A tall, skinny witch that Severus didn't know leaned forward, peering down at Lucius and Remus through her pair of glittering pince-nez. "You have proof that this man is a werewolf, I assume?"

Lucius smirked. "If you feel that you need proof beyond the effect that silver is obviously having on him—there is a witness willing to testify based on firsthand evidence."

"His name?"

"Antonin Dolohov."

"Let him come forth."

The doors opened again, to reveal the face of one of the men Severus loathed most in the world. Dolohov swaggered in with all the self-assurance of a man who knows he is about to do something terrible, and who plans to enjoy it. It was a look that his face was used to wearing. He took his seat, looking disdainfully over at Remus.

"You are Antonin Dolohov?"

"Yes."

"State your relationship to the defendant."

"I'm Potions Master at Hogwarts. The werewolf used to be Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

A squat little witch leaned forward, and Severus recognized, with the greatest distaste, the face of Dolores Umbridge. "When did you first learn that the accused was concealing his half-breed status?" she asked, simpering as sweetly as if she'd inquired about how Dolohov liked his tea.

The so-called Potions Master smiled sadistically at Remus. "Only a few days ago."

"But you knew of his status beforehand?"

"I was under the impression that the Board of Governors were informed."

"But they were not?"

"No."

"And how did you come to learn of it?"

"I was asked to brew the Wolfsbane Potion for him."

"Did you agree to do this?"

Dolohov grunted. "Yes."

"You made it for him every month?"

Remus twisted his lip bitterly, but nobody other than Severus seemed to notice.

"I made it every month."

"Did he take it regularly?"

"More or less."

"More or less?"

"Missed it a few times," said Dolohov.

"For what reason?"

He shrugged. "Search me. Not very reliable, I suppose."

The witch in pince-nez sniffed. "Apparently not."

Things continued in that vein for perhaps another half hour—or perhaps it was several hours. Severus found it very easy to lose track of time in that room. He felt as if he'd been trapped in a cave so far below the earth that time had ceased to exist. Finally, however, someone voiced the suggestion that they get on with the sentencing.

"Wait," said the Albus Dumbledore who presided over the Wizengamot, his voice ringing through the courtroom. "There is one more charge that I believe must be brought against him."

"One more?" whispered Severus, aghast.

The Dumbledore who stood beside him shook his head sorrowfully. "There was no way to know, Severus," he murmured. "You, Harry, Ron and Hermione were not there in the Shrieking Shack that night to stop Sirius from killing Peter Pettigrew, nor was Harry there to reveal to Remus that Pettigrew was still alive. He believed that it was Sirius who betrayed Lily and James and forced Peter into hiding—and, I am sorry to say—"

He was cut off by Madam Bones, who was frowning at the Dumbledore accusing Remus. "There's more, Dumbledore?"

That Dumbledore folded his hands, looking gravely around up at the assembly of the Wizengamot. "It is my belief," he said softly, "that Remus Lupin was and is a loyal servant of Lord Voldemort, and is responsible for the betrayal of Lily and James Potter that led to their death in Godric's Hollow at his hand."

An awful hush fell over the room.

"No" whispered Severus fiercely, clenching his hands. The Dumbledore beside him said nothing.

All eyes were fixed on the other Dumbledore, who drew a long, slow breath and leaned back in his seat. "It is known," he said, "amongst many members of the Wizengamot, that James and Lily Potter, and their son, were in hiding in Godric's Hollow, protected from discovery by means of a Fidelius Charm. Their Secret-Keeper has always been presumed to be Sirius Black."

In his peripheral vision, Severus saw Dumbledore remove his spectacles and begin cleaning them on the sleeve of his robe, an unreadable expression on his face.

"It was documented, Dumbledore, they told you—"

"What is documented," interrupted Dumbledore, "is that Sirius Black was Harry Potter's godfather, and James Potter's best friend. It is also documented that they stated their intention to make Black their Secret-Keeper."

A murmur began to grow in the crowd, until finally someone called out, "You're saying that it was someone else?"

"I am saying that it was Remus Lupin."

Lupin moaned softly. Severus' eyes moved automatically to where he sat, but he looked away again immediately. The look of utter despair in Lupin's eyes as he gazed up at Dumbledore was too painful to contemplate, even for a moment.

"Werewolf," said the witch in pince-nez coldly, "were you Secret-Keeper for Lily and James Potter?"

They waited, but Remus didn't answer. He appeared to have retreated into himself, his eyes dull and miserable, his arms occasionally twitching where the silver pressed into the now-blackening flesh.

"You will answer the charges, or you will be presumed guilty!"

Still, Remus made no answer. Severus looked on in disbelief. Only Dumbledore's hand on his arm kept him from charging in and defending Remus himself. There had been no love lost between them, and Severus, while he had forgiven much, did not like or trust werewolves, but Remus had been a loyal member of the Order of the Phoenix. He had nobly given his life for the sake of the Order, Hogwarts, and the wizarding world at large. It was impossible to think that Albus Dumbledore could ever accuse such a man of being an ally of Lord Voldemort.

Impossible, and yet it was happening before his very eyes.

The other Dumbledore's face was hard as he turned it on Remus. "Remus Lupin," he said coldly, "in addition to the charges already laid at your feet, you are now charged with being an accessory to the murders of James and Lily Potter, and the attempted murder of Harry Potter. You are further charged with being a Death Eater, a loyal servant of Lord Voldemort, and of having spied for him until the time of his disappearance." He paused, waiting until the echoe of his voice had died away. "All those in favor of finding the defendant guilty, raise your wand hands."

Slowly, every witch and wizard there, without exception, lifted their wands in the air.

Dumbledore allowed a moment for the official vote to be tallied, and then stood up, his robes rippling around him, his face set in harsh, bitter lines. "By my authority as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, I hereby sentence you to undergo the Dementor's Kiss at midnight tonight." And without another word, in defiance of convention and procedure, the Chief Warlock turned and left the courtroom.

"No!" cried Severus, as soon as the courtroom was empty. "What have you done, Dumbledore?"

"I?" asked Dumbledore mildly, "I have done nothing, Severus. Nor have you—which, I think, is the point."

"Do not speak to me in riddles."

"I do not know how to state things more plainly for you than I already have. Your wish was granted, Severus. You were never born. Now you must reap the consequences of your self-hatred."

"This is madness. Remus Lupin died a hero's death at the Battle of Hogwarts."

"Remus Lupin's body died in Azkaban less than two years after his soul was eaten by a Dementor for the crime of being a Death Eater."

"He had no Dark Mark!"

Dumbledore gazed at him sadly. "Nor did Fenrir Greyback. Perhaps time has dimmed your memory. Voldemort employed werewolves as his spies and cohorts, and even graced a few of them with the title of Death Eater, but he never allowed them the highest honor. The Dark Mark was a privilege beyond the reckoning of a werewolf."

"Potter, Lupin, Black, Pettigrew—I refuse to be made to feel guilty for deaths that never happened."

"Nor should you have been made to, because they did not happen. But without you there, Severus—well, you have seen it." He spread his hands apart, palms upward. "Things changed."

Harry expected to find Hermione in the library. He spent nearly fifteen minutes looking for her there, without success.

His second attempt fared better. Hermione had retreated to the quiet privacy of the Snape family quarters. For a series of dungeon rooms, they were surprisingly comfortable, and, although Hermione and Severus both would have been horrified to hear it, Harry felt there was an atmosphere rather like the Burrow about it, although there was not a shred of visual similarity between the two homes. Perhaps it was the obvious presence of their children in the public rooms. Perhaps it was simply the fact that, through the sheer force of Hermione's stubborn will, Harry had always been welcome there.

Ginny had herded their children into the small family library, leaving Hermione in the front room alone. She was huddled into a chair, curled into a fetal position, with the family clock on her knees, and two books balanced precariously on top of it. Typical for Hermione, she appeared to be reading both books at once, her lips moving soundlessly as her eyes darted from page to page.

"Any luck?" he asked.

She jumped, one of the books clattering to the floor, and the clock just barely escaping the same fate by dint of Hermione's good reflexes. "Oh, hello Harry," she said, in a bright, brittle voice.

"None, then?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but closed it again without saying anything, tears welling up in her eyes. She tried several more times, before Harry realized she wasn't going to be able to answer.

"We're going to solve this," he said gently. "He's going to be fine."

"But what if he isn't?"

"He is."

"You said that already," she said, her voice shaky, "but what if heisn't?"

Harry drew a chair close to hers and sat down on the edge of it, his elbows on his knees. He took her second book away and laid it carefully on the floor, and then looked her in the face. "Hermione, we're going to do everything we can do. Snape is a survivor. Whatever is happening to him, he's going to find a way to fight through it."

"There's something going on, Harry."

He frowned and rubbed his chin, scratching the stubble that was beginning to poke through his skin. "You're probably right, but I don't have any idea what."

She looked down at the clock, resting her fingers lovingly on one of the hands, where Harry could see the name 'Severus Tobias Snape' engraved. It hadn't moved. "Things were so much simpler back when we were children."

"Back then, it was always Severus' fault."

She smiled bitterly. "According to everyone but us, it still is."

"Why blame Severus, though? That's what I don't understand. Seems pretty obvious to me that you can't hold the Headmaster responsible for the Potions Master's mistakes."

"You work as an Auror, Harry. You understand how the chain of command works. Besides, Ernie wasn't a popular choice. He's not the most qualified person Severus could have hired. He was sort of doing him a favor, to be honest. It led to a bit of a argument." She rolled her eyes. "School politics is even worse than Ministry politics."

Harry, well-acquainted with the inner workings of the Ministry for Magic, raised his eyebrows.

"Honestly," she added, shaking her head, "you've no idea."

"I'll take your word for it. Even if Ernie was an unpopular appointment, though, it isn't as if Severus is unpopular. He's not Dumbledore, of course—"

"And wouldn't want to be," said Hermione.

"And wouldn't want to be. But he's well-liked. He's done wonderful things for the school. Everyone says so."

"There are wheels within wheels, Harry. He's popular outside Hogwarts, and he's popular with most of the students, although sometimes I can't imagine why. He hasn't changed that much. The Board of Governors is another story. There are people who want him gone."

"Who?"

She shook her head. "It's hard to say. It could just be paranoia on my part. I'm not on the Board, so I don't go to the meetings. The Headmaster attends—professors don't, and Severus isn't terribly communicative about what goes on in them."

Harry sat back in the chair, sighing. "Do you think it was just incompetence on Ernie's part?"

"He's not the most brilliant person who's ever held the position, but he's not incompetent, or Severus wouldn't have employed him, no matter how much Ernie needed the position. You know Ernie, Harry. He's conscientious, and he's honestly devoted to his students." Her face twisted into what might optimistically be termed a smile. "Hufflepuff, you know."

"And Neville provided the ingredients."

She nodded.

Harry was on the point of asking another question, when the door burst open.

"Mum!" screamed the short, black-haired child who ran in, "Hypatia hit me!"

Hypatia, shorter still, and possessed of an enormous quantity of very black, very curly hair, followed her sister in. She smiled coyly at Harry, who was absolutely incapable of resisting her charms, and held his arms out to her immediately. After a moment's hesitation, she walked over to him and clambered into his lap.

"Hypatia," said Hermione sternly, "did you hit Miranda?"

Hypatia nodded, and pointed to the side of her own head.

"You hit her on thehead?"

"With my broomstick!" wailed Miranda, red-faced and red-eyed.

Hermione gathered her middle child into her lap and inspected her head for bumps or bruises, eventually finding a bright red mark just in front of her left ear.

"Hypatia, it is not all right to hit your sister," she said, with the air of a person delivering a long-since memorized speech. "Miranda, if Hypatia tries to hit you, what are you supposed to do?"

Miranda eyed her sister warily. "Say 'no thank you, Hypatia.'"

"That's right. And what else?"

She scowled. "Walk away."

"That's right. You need to remember that, please."

Miranda wriggled out of Hermione's lap, stuck her chin out in an angry gesture that made her look unbelievably similar to her mother, in spite of her long nose and sleek hair. "No thank you, Hypatia," she said viciously, and stalked away.

Hypatia, who had been rummaging in Harry's front pocket for sweets, paused long enough to shoot Miranda a quizzical look before she returned to her search.

Harry finally fished a sherbet lemon from a different pocket and slipped it to her when he thought Hermione wasn't looking. "Does that really work?" he asked, as Miranda returned to the other room, dragging the door shut behind her with one last, venomous look at her sister.

"Which?" Hermione looked distractedly at the clock again.

"Just telling them to say 'no thank you' and things like that."

She shrugged. "It works just as well as anything else, I think. Severus wishes I'd be more of a disciplinarian, but my mum sent me this book—"

"Say no more," said Harry, rolling his eyes. He picked up Hypatia, now happily sucking on her sherbet lemon, and put her down on the ground. "I'm going back to the Ministry. Maybe I can poke around, ask a few questions. There's got to be some connection we aren't making."

Hermione set the clock carefully down on the arm of the chair, and then bent forward and picked up her youngest child. Hypatia snuggled into Hermione's shoulder, sucking contentedly on her smuggled sweet. Hermione held her tightly.

"Thank you, Harry," she said, as he turned his back to go.

He ran his hand through his hair, rumpling it up in embarrassment. "Not necessary. That's what friends are for."

"Are you going to go in and see Ginny?"

"She told me not to dare to show my face around her until Severus is back."

Hermione smiled faintly. "Thanks, Harry," she said again.

As soon as the courtroom started to dissolve around him, Severus closed his eyes—the transition was less wrenching than the pull of a Portkey, but still disorienting, and he hoped he'd find it less nauseating if he didn't watch.

He found himself in a musty old room. There was a faint, acrid odor Severus associated with despair and neglect. It smelled of sweat, urine, even the copper tang of blood. He had found that smell a feature in much that Dumbledore had shown him from Spinner's End to Azkaban thus far.

"Albus …"

"Just wait," he said, as he Disillusioned them.

Severus sat on an iron-bound trunk, but leapt up when he heard a bang, as if something kicked from the inside.

"But not there," said Dumbledore.

Backing away until he reached the wall, he slowly sat down against that, instead.

Seeing Lupin again had been … trying. When Hermione had told him how Lupin had abandoned his unborn child, while claiming the moral high ground for the act, he hadn't been able to keep himself from a sneer. "How like Lupin," he had told her, "to wallow in self-pity and expect others to see it as noble."

The expression on her face when he'd said that had caused him to swallow down the rest of his thought, that he wouldn't have put it past Lupin to go to a 'heroic death' rather than face living and the responsibilities of fatherhood. The "consequences of your self-hatred" Dumbledore had said to him—had he succeeded in killing himself, his own children would have become as fatherless as Teddy Lupin, and that he was sure Harry would cosset them as much as he did Teddy didn't abate his self-contempt. He was no better than Lupin.

His head jerked up when he heard the creak of the door. Someone was approaching—first there was a shuffling noise, then a hard thud, the sequence repeating again and again. Severus frowned, trying to decipher the sounds. The door swung open, and Mad-Eye came through. Severus pressed closer to the wall, tried not to even breathe heavily. The Disillusionment Charm didn't muffle sounds. Even after the passage of almost two decades, Moody still could make his body stiffen, as if he were preparing for an attack.

The old man sat on a chair near the trunk and kicked it. He removed the magical eye and took off his wooden leg, leaning it against his chair, then he put his good leg up on the trunk with a grin. But the voice that came from the seated figure wasn't Moody's. It was younger, less gruff. "Oh, Alastor, it's really beginning to smell a little ripe in here. Looks like I'll have to clean you up again. I had such a good time today. Do you remember the Longbottoms? Of course you do—Frank was your partner, wasn't he? Amazing, really, that their child could be almost a squib. Little Neville—Hogwarts school champion for the Triwizard tournament—went against a Hungarian Horntail today … and lost."

A furious kicking came from inside the trunk, rocking it from side to side. As he watched, the ersatz Moody's face rippled, the graying hair darkening, the stump growing into a leg.

Crouch.

"So, Dumbledore has lost the last possible 'chosen one.' There's no pawn of prophecy left. What will he do? Make Diggory, the other Hogwarts champion his stalking horse? But Diggory's no Gryffindor. Dumbledore would be as likely to look for a hero in Hufflepuff as in Slytherin. I could ask what you think, but I don't really need to. I've studied you so closely, imitated you for months, spoken with your most intimate friends. I can think like you now. I am you. Worry not. I'll take you out for a cleaning soon. And I'll still need you to provide some hair, maybe pull a memory or two."

Crouch unlocked the trunk with a wave of his wand—a fetid miasma wafted over to where Severus sat, making him gag. When had Moody been out of there last?

Kneeling down to peer inside, an almost tender look on his face, Crouch reached in. "Dumbledore is reviving the old Order of the Phoenix, and Moody will play an important part. I couldn't have done it, really, without your habit of nipping at the bottle almost every hour. People would have suspected." A pensive look crossed Crouch's face and he spoke softy, with something close to regret almost touching his voice. "Neville almost made it. When he came out of the tent for his turn, he looked around on the ground, picked up this odd flower. Sprout called it Blood Root—said it acted like a sort of catnip for dragons—well, dragons were the first task. Crept close to the dragon, let her take a whiff, then backed away, threw the plant and tried to go after the golden egg. That's when the Horntail burned him to a crisp. Kept his nerve all through, too, and he struck me as a rather nervous sort. But he was a Gryffindor, after all, one of your lot. The rest survived—not their schools' champions for nothing. A pureblood, Neville. Last of the Longbottoms. What a waste."

Severus heard a sound come from the trunk, a low whine that sounded more like a noise that a dog would make, than a human being. Moody would have been in that trunk for months. Severus glanced over to the other side of the room where he knew Dumbledore quietly stood. Severus imagined he was looking not at Moody or Crouch, but at him. How could he send them both to these little excursions and stay so serene, as if he were just playing a chess game, and what mattered wasn't the movement of the pieces but trying to gauge the effect on his opponent?

Careful not to make any noise, Severus got up off the floor. It still amazed him how easy movement was, how all the old aches and injuries weren't there. If Albus were so determined to put him through this, he might as well get the full show—see what his careless words had wrought. When his step made a floorboard creak, he froze, but Crouch was still intently peering in the trunk. With a few more steps, he was able to see Moody in the trunk, a blanket tucked around him like a child put to bed, but his expression …

Moody's face was slack, his one good eye was glazed, but tears left tracks down his grimy face. In the course of events that Severus knew, Moody had survived months more in the trunk and had come out of it with his psyche intact, even if he had become darker and more paranoid than ever. But now it was as if Crouch's news had broken something.

Severus turned away, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.

Lupin. Moody. Both had been tormentors of sorts. But he didn't want this. He had never wanted this. Not caring if he alerted Crouch to his presence, he strode out the open door and down the stairs, only knowing that he couldn't stay one more minute. As soon as he reached outside, he took in deep gulps of the cool autumn air, trying to cleanse his lungs, purge it of the air of that … pit.

He didn't turn around when he heard steps drawing close to him. "So, Albus," Severus said, "would you like me to draw the lessons for this particular sermon on 'for want of a nail?'"

"I think you know it would be more than that by this point."

He did know that. He had avoided 'Moody' when he'd acted as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that year. But he couldn't believe that even in changed circumstances he wouldn't have cottoned on to the presence of a mole among the Order ranks once he'd returned to Voldemort. And all the intelligence he had gleaned after returning … He had known he was making a difference, hadn't been able to resist goading Black about it, in point of fact—not that he'd had even tried to resist. He'd prided himself on the risks he'd taken, the small victories, making up for the nightmare he'd lived when he'd had to work his way back into Voldemort's dubious graces after that fateful Triwizard tournament. Without Severus, the Order's one window into the Death Eaters, the future would be even more dramatically different from here on—he knew that, no matter how he resisted Dumbledore's little lessons.

Severus shook his head. "This, too, is the result of my self-hatred? Well, I hated Moody. He was the one that arrested me all those years ago and hurled me into Azkaban. Tried some interesting … enhanced interrogation techniques on me. Why shouldn't I glory in what I saw upstairs? Relish it? Shouldn't I be entertained?"

"But you aren't. Because in the end, you're not as bad as you make yourself out to be."

"Was that the lesson of the hour? Well, here's what I don't understand, all-seeing one. Whatever I might have deserved, I can hardly believe you'd turn the world upside down just to teach me, punish me. This isn't real—" He glared up at Dumbledore. "—or this isn't permanent."

"This is very real, Severus. Every choice we make, or don't make, or could have made, calls into being a different world. This had been my lesson, some might say my punishment in this existence. To trace all the different possible fates I changed for good or ill. To learn exactly who I undervalued in life."

Dumbledore offered him a hand up, but Severus refused to take it, levering himself up. "Tell me there's a way out of this, Albus."

But Dumbledore just gave him a smile before again whisking him away from their surroundings.

"Ernie—do you know who else was up for your position?"

"I'm perfectly qualified to—"

"I didn't ask that. I just heard there was controversy is all, and I just want to know who might be out there and wanting to discredit you."

Ernie's eyes bulged and his mouth went slack, as if that thought had never occurred to him. Harry felt a faint surge of irritation. He found it impossible to believe Severus hadn't gone over this ground. But Hermione was right—Ernie was conscientious, and even a dab hand at potions, but rather naive in some ways, especially given the times they'd all lived through.

After a fruitless visit to the Ministry to check his sources there, Harry had returned to the Potions classroom to cast a few spells, try to look for traces of Dark Magic, but he'd have had a better chance had he been here two weeks ago. Harry wasn't sure Hermione was right about school politics being more treacherous than those at the Ministry—in fact, he wondered if they were connected. He should have been informed of this—he wasn't Auror head, but he was damn close, and he hadn't been convinced by Robard's protestations that his mission had been too sensitive to be interrupted. A damn ruddy goose chase is what it had been, and part of Harry wondered if they'd wanted him out of the way. The way Auror Warrington, assigned to the Hogwarts case, avoided his Floo calls and owls hadn't reassured him.

"It was between me, Draco Malfoy, and Damocles Belby."

"The inventor of Wolfsbane." No wonder some had questioned whether Severus had chosen the most qualified candidate.

"Belby had a lot of conditions—he only wanted to teach Advanced Potions, really. The Headmaster said he didn't want to hire two teachers when he could hire one, and said he wanted someone devoted to the school—someone younger, who was less set in his ways. He said we needed to throw out more than the old Potions texts." Ernie looked at him directly and jutted out his chin. "Potions was the Headmaster's own discipline—and in the end, you know, he truly loved it more than Defense Against the Dark Arts—that's where he did original research. Do you really think he'd pick less than the best?"

Harry sighed and shook his head. He didn't say that, in some ways, Severus modeled himself too much on Dumbledore, and he'd known really that Dumbledore hadn't always chosen by who was the best in their discipline, or even the best teacher. Otherwise Care of Magical Creatures would have been taught by Grubbly-Plank, not Hagrid. As much as he'd once bristled at those who'd so much as hinted at that, he couldn't completely blame those who grumbled that Hogwarts should operate as a school, not a sanctuary for hard-luck misfits—like de-wanded half-Giants, werewolves—and ex-Death Eaters. Harry wondered if there was something he didn't know about Ernie, something that put him on that list of almost-unemployable.

His attention was drawn by Ernie's sharp, indrawn breath. The man had paled.

"Harry," he whispered.

"What is it?"

"The Headmaster … especially after all this happened. We have a ledger now that magically lists any ingredient withdrawn from the storeroom—and by whom." Swallowing hard, Ernie shakily pushed the ledger over to him.

On a line with today's date, not a few hours before, was inscribed the name Severus Snape—and beside it "Somnus Potion." Harry gave Ernie an enquiring look.

"It's made with Basilisk venom. A single drop can bring powerful visions, but more than that is a deadly poison, with no antidote."

Suddenly it occurred to Harry why Severus could be alone in a room and still be in "mortal peril."

This time, Severus found himself outside on what he supposed would have been a summer day, if not for the chill mist that swirled around his ankles. He shifted his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. He knew that mist, and the miasma of despair that seemed to move invisibly through the air with it. Dementors. Breeding Dementors.

His hand went to his wand unconsciously. "What now, Dumbledore? More misery for me to behold, I assume?"

Dumbledore glanced up at the overcast sky, and then looked around to be sure nobody had seen them. "Follow me."

Accordingly, Severus followed him. They walked for a long time, until the terrain slowly began to change. Severus didn't recognize it, but it was unpleasant. He was ankle-deep in cold mud, although the fog finally seemed to be thinning a bit, and that was a blessing, if a small one.

They walked for a long time before Dumbledore finally held up a hand to stop him, and then took a sharp turn, into a thicket.

"Dumbledore?"

"This way," called the Headmaster over his shoulder.

Severus, with no other alternative but to follow, plunged into the bushes after him. Almost immediately, he found himself in a wide clearing, warm and sunlit. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw only the thick bracken through which he had just tunneled.

"An enchantment, I suppose."

Dumbledore glanced over his shoulder and smiled. "Naturally, naturally," he said, chuckling. "One of my own, in fact. Out-of-the-way, unplottable, and perpetually pleasant. Although, I suppose, if someone really wished for a change in the weather, it wouldn't be too difficult to put together a little thunderstorm."

"Why are we here?"

Dumbledore's face grew grave again, a look that Severus was beginning to dread. "You will see soon enough. Come, Severus, let us retire over here. I must Disillusion you again."

Severus scowled. "Of course."

The charms applied, they didn't have long to wait. People began to crawl through the hole that Severus and Dumbledore had entered by. Severus recognized nearly all of them. Nymphadora Tonks was first, followed almost immediately by Kingsley Shacklebolt. Minerva was next, and then Hestia Jones, Dedalus Diggle, Arthur Weasley, and one of the Weasley twins—George, judging by the fact that there were no explosions within the first sixty seconds after his entry.

"Where are the rest of them?" asked Severus, waiting for more redheads, and seeing none.

"The rest, Severus?" asked Dumbledore.

"The Weasleys."

"Ah." There was a long pause. Beside him, Severus could hear a faint rustle as Dumbledore moved. "They will not be coming."

The cold knot in his stomach that had been present for some time now tightened still further. "Dead?"

"No."

"This is an Order meeting, is it not? Surely at least Molly—"

"If Molly wished to come, she would have come."

Severus frowned. "You mean to tell me that she is absent simply because she isn't interested?"

"I do."

"Preposterous. If anything, Molly has always been more passionate about the Order than Arthur."

"Not anymore," said Dumbledore sadly.

"Explain." Severus' voice was sharp with anger, and for a moment, he thought they'd been heard. Tonks, at least, cast an uncertain glance in their direction. But she seemed to decide that whatever she thought she'd heard was a figment of her imagination, and she shook her head, turning her attention back to Kingsley, with whom she had been carrying on a low, intense conversation.

"Molly is a passionate woman, Severus, as well you know," said Dumbledore, his voice as soft as Severus' had been hard. "When Ginny Weasley died, it tore the family apart in many ways. Percival, Ronald, Fred, and Molly have all … withdrawn their personal support for me, after my inability to protect her."

"As if you could have protected her from a raging madman," said Severus dismissively. "Without Parseltongue, even Potter couldn't have so much as made the attempt to thwart his designs."

"Indeed," said Dumbledore, his voice still very soft, and very sad.

"Molly Prewett was always fanatically loyal to you. I still fail to see—"

"She became Molly Weasley, Severus, as you know, and that was not a bad thing. She was even more fanatically devoted to Harry and her children, and it was that very devotion that would have enabled her to conquer Bellatrix Lestrange—had you been there to protect Harry and her children. But, that very same devotion drove her away from the Order and from myself personally, after the tragedies that I could not prevent."

"Tragedies?"

"Harry died as well, you remember."

"Ah," said Severus, and then again, more softly, "ah."

One last figure entered the thicket. Severus' heartbeat suddenly accelerated, his sense of foreboding seeming to make even his fingertips prickle.

"Moody!" called Arthur. "At last! Where have you been?"

"Delayed," growled Moody, who Severus was sure could not really be Moody.

"We were worried," said Kingsley.

A faint, twisted smile worked its way onto Moody-Crouch's ravaged face. "No need to be. Here I am."

"Let us begin, then." Arthur stood up.

"Yes!" cried Crouch, who had not yet sat down. "Let us begin!"

"Moody—"

"I have something to say!"

"Let him speak," whispered Minerva, with a pitying glance at Crouch, who she obviously thought had gone a bit mad. If only she knew.

He waited until he was sure he had the full attention of all the assembled witches and wizards. Severus watched his blue eye spin manically around in his head, although the sight nauseated him slightly, as it always had. A few times, he thought it came to rest on the spot where he and Dumbledore were hiding, and he felt a stab of fear. Could Moody's eye see through Disillusionment charms?

Moody waited another moment, seeming to enjoy the suspense that he held them all in. A feeling of foreboding seemed to have entered the room with him, as it so often did, and now it grew steadily stronger.

"Dumbledore is dead," he said.

"No!" cried Arthur despairingly, and his cry was joined by those of all the rest. Minerva wept. Tonks suddenly seemed to diminish into the little girl that Severus remembered from years of Potions lessons, a small, lost-looking Hufflepuff with a too-great awareness of her family failings and her own oddity. Dumbledore had done a great deal for her, as he had for all the grieving people who now clung to each other, wracked with despair. Even Severus, infected by the mood of the moment, reached out to feel for the invisible Dumbledore beside him and assure himself that his guide was still there.

Kingsley, the only one who had stayed silent at the news, finally raised his bowed head. "What's happened?"

"He failed, that's what," growled Moody-Crouch. "Got himself killed, and whatever weapon he thought he was going to get for us is gone with him." His eye slowed somewhat in its spinning, fixing on each of them in turn. "Unless one of you knows what he was after."

Nobody met anybody else's eye. Severus turned to look at Dumbledore, but Dumbledore, of course, was invisible. Still, something told him that he knew what he would hear, if Dumbledore were to speak. The Peverell ring. Dumbledore was a damn fool. Of course he'd put it on. He had even more reason to than before, if Harry, Ginny, and Neville were all dead. But the curse had been a powerful one, and Severus had barely been able to contain it, using every art at his disposal.

"Nobody?" Crouch drew his wand, playing with it idly. "Very well. Dumbledore's finally out of the way, you've all outlived your usefulness, and I've got orders." He gave none of them time to react. His wand whipped forward.

"Avada Kedavra!" he roared again and again, and before the last of them could so much as draw their own wand in self-defense, they had all fallen.

"About damn time," Crouch said, treading on George's hand with Moody's wooden leg on his way out.

When Harry returned to the Snape quarters, Hermione was nowhere to be seen. That was as he preferred it, for the moment, and he stuck his head into the room where Ginny was watching their assembled children.

"Ginny," he said softly, "I need a minute."

She raised one delicate copper eyebrow. "Is he back?"

"No."

"Then no."

"Damn it, Ginny, I'm not joking!"

The older children stopped playing and stared at him, aghast. Ginny's eyes moved from them to Harry, and she frowned.

"Harry, don't use that sort of language in front of the children. Children, James is in charge. Make sure you listen to what he says. And James, be nice to the little ones."

Harry waited until the door was firmly closed behind his wife before he spoke. "Gin, I need your advice."

"Harry, what's going on with Severus? What do you know? Hermione's been driven just about to distraction. I sent her to bed with a Calming Draught, she was starting to say the most horrible things. She won't let go of that clock, either. It reminds me of mum during the war."

"Well," said Harry bracingly, "your mum turned out all right."

"First time I've heard you say that in a while."

"Look, it's beside the point. Ginny, I know why he's gone to the Room of Requirement."

She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Yes?"

"He's—he took a potion with him."

"What potion?"

"It's poison, Ginny."

Her face, always pale, went white, and she pressed her lips together. Ginny was a woman who chose silence instead of exclamation in the face of a shock.

"There's no way to get in there after him. All we can do is wait and hope he makes it out … on his own."

His wife drew close to him, and he put his arms around her, burying his face in the smooth, sweet-smelling waves of her hair. "Oh Harry," she said into his chest, her voice breaking.

"I've got to find out what's going on. Something's happened. Someone's interfering at Hogwarts."

She drew back, straightening up and sticking her chin out with a determined look. "What do you need my advice about?"

"I don't know how to tell Hermione that—"

"Tell Hermione what?" asked Hermione from her bedroom door. Harry hadn't heard it open, but she was there nonetheless, her head resting against the door frame wearily, the clock still clutched under one arm.

"Hermione." Ginny's eyes met Harry's with a look of anguish. "Didn't the Calming Draught work?"

"I still can't sleep. Tell me what? Is there news? Do you know something?" She held up the clock plaintively. "It still says 'mortal peril,' Harry. Oh, Harry, I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Hermione," said Ginny again, "perhaps you'd better sit down."

"No." Hermione's voice was sharp. "Tell me what it is. Tell me now. I need to know."

Ginny looked at Harry, and he cleared his throat. "He's—Ernie says he's got a potion with him, Hermione."

Hermione, as Ginny had, paled. "What potion?"

"Somnus."

"No!" she wailed, dropping the clock and running for the door.

Ginny went to rescue the clock, which, miraculously, hadn't broken. Harry went after Hermione, who was already out the door and in the hallway, running as if for dear life—which, he reflected unhappily, she was. He followed her up, up, up endless flights of stairs, through endless hallways, until they came to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. She stood in front of the blank stretch of wall that Harry knew hid the door to the Room.

"Severus!" she screamed, her voice echoing through the passage. "Severus! Come out!" She threw herself at the wall, sobbing, pounding on it with her fists, bruising them heedlessly on the stone. "Severus! You can't leave me. Please! Oh, God, Severus, please!"

Harry, his own eyes beginning to sting, ran forward and pulled her away from the wall, closing his arms tightly around her to try and stop her from struggling. "Hermione, it's no good. He can't hear you. We just need to wait." He tried to keep his voice soothing, instead of panicked. "Come on. Let's go back. This isn't going to do any good."

"No! I'm not leaving until he comes out!"

"Hermione, you've got to. The children—"

"Ginny can watch the bloody children! I want my husband!" She buried her face in his shoulder, crying as if her heart would break.

To be continued


	3. Happy Christmas!

Disclaimers, notes, and beta credits may be found in Chapter One.

An Unexamined Life

by ZeeGrindylows and harmonybites

CHAPTER THREE  
As soon as Severus rematerialized, what hit him was the stench. An acrid, burning smell, combined with other odors, grease, offal. Through the murky air, he saw the ruins of a castle. The profile of a tower, still intact above the ruins, made his stomach clench in recognition. His first thought was that Dumbledore had to have turned him into a Muggle, that surely this was just the illusion that Muggles saw—this wasn't Hogwarts as it really was, couldn't be. Then he turned around and saw before him the familiar wrought iron gates flanked by the pillars on which stood the statues of winged boars.

Over a thousand years, with Dark Lords and Ladies rising and falling, Hogwarts had often been the ultimate prize, the ultimate redoubt and final place of battle. What it had never been, because what its former students could never let it be, was a ruin in fact.

He began to run up the steps, when Dumbledore called him back. As soon as he felt the cold trickle down his back of the charm, he didn't wait any longer, but ran back up the stone steps, bracing himself for what he'd find, and stopped short at what he found. An open pit. At first, they looked to him like tossed piles of straw-filled clothes, stained and almost floating in the blood, surrounded by a cloud of flies. But only a moment passed before he knew them for what they were—corpses. He recognized Cho Chang by the distinctive crow shape of her lapis lazuli hair clip. The Patil twins were entwined together as if that had been how they'd died. There were Slytherin cloaks among the other houses here and there. In some cases their faces were obscured; other faces were unrecognisable, but there, that was Zabini … Greengrass … Pucey.

Severus felt a touch at his arm. "None of my Slytherins should have died," Severus said softly. "They stayed out of the fight originally, and if Voldemort won this…"

"He did," said Dumbledore just as softly, seemingly for once as affected by the horror before them as Severus was. "Who else would put all his enemies in a common pit?"

"Enemies? Zabini? Greengrass? Pucey? Slytherins all—"

"Some Slytherins fought against him. Oh, Severus, did it never occur to you to wonder why not one Slytherin fought by Harry's side?"

"No, because I was sure of the answer. Slytherins were never included among the DA. During your entire tenure in Hogwarts they had never been given any reason to feel they had a stake in opposing Voldemort or would be trusted if they did."

"More than that, remember why you survived, Severus. The first thing Bulstrode asked when Minerva told the students they could stay and fight, was where you were. Minerva told them you had 'done a bunk' and later, after Parkinson threatened Harry, Minerva told her to leave and that 'the rest of your House could follow.' They did not know what had become of you. Bulstrode, Zabini, among others, were sure you would not have abandoned them."

"They were wrong at that."

Dumbledore squeezed his shoulder. "No, they weren't. You just didn't want to hurt Minerva and the others—and you did need to find Harry. You had other priorities then if we were to defeat that madman. I know it cost—"

"Yes, yes." He shrugged off Dumbledore's hand.

"Minerva's unfortunate wording left the Slytherins with the definite impression they would not be welcome in the fight, so after Parkinson led them out, Slytherin split."

"With Draco, Goyle, and Crabbe to our infamy doubling back to ambush Harry."

"And the bulk of Slytherins fanning out to find you—and a good thing they did, or you would have died. That is your legacy too. Without the DA, House Unity was weaker, but it was equally weak—no longer three versus one, but four standing shakily together. This battle of Hogwarts was even less organized, even more bloody than what we knew. And yes, to his shock Ronald Weasley found Adrian Pucey fighting by his side. Cho Chang died with Zabini and Greengrass fighting beside her. The losses were considerably higher on both sides. Come with me."

Following Dumbledore, they climbed through the ruins to find a small group huddled over a pile of stones that was being levitated away. Severus spotted Lucius. Naturally. Like cockroaches, there'd still be Malfoys after a nuclear apocalypse, or, as in this case, a magical one.

This Lucius looked little like his sleek self, though. Stubble appeared on his chin and his clothes were stained and wrinkled. His eyes were bloodshot.

Beside him stood Bellatrix. "You should be proud. Proud that Draco died for our Lord."

Severus bit back a moan. After all the deaths in this panoply of horror Dumbledore had laid before him, he thought himself immune, but before Brian had ever been born, the closest Severus had ever come to being a father had been his relationship with Draco.

Severus saw Lucius' wand arm twitch, a movement immediately stilled, but telling in the very controlled elder Malfoy. Then he saw a dark shape swoop down from the sky and alight in front of them both.

"My Lord," Bellatrix said, ecstatically, immediately bowing down to kiss his hem. Lucius was fractionally slower, acting simply as he were being careful, as if the movements pained him, but Severus wondered if that was simply physical.

The man turned down his hood, and the face before him looked older than it should be given how he'd seen him in the last—vision? He should be around twenty-one, but it was the face of someone who had spent the time in dissolute acts—or Dark Magic. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and there seemed a reddish tinge already to those dark eyes.

"Fear not, my faithful servant. You still have the hammer to forge something better. Narcissa was a weak vessel, you can do better."

"As you say, my Lord." Lucius' tone was drained, but a further twitch of his wand hand told Severus that were it anyone else that stood there, the words that would have poured out of his mouth would have started with Avada and ended withKedavra.

"You can have your choice of wives among pureblood society." For him, Voldemort's voice was almost gentle.

Lucius just inclined his head, and the three turned and walked away.

As soon as they made it out of their hearing and Dumbledore lifted the charm, Severus turned to Dumbledore and said, "Lucius will turn against him."

"He might have—had Voldemort been directly responsible, had there been any organized opposition that led him to hope—"

"Lucius loved his son. If you'd ever had any—"

"Lucius loves power. And he's practical. He will accommodate himself. Not easily, I grant you, but the result will be a man more bitter, more sadistic than you ever knew."

"What happened to Narcissa?"

"After I … or rather, after this timeline's Dumbledore died, Voldemort set upon Draco the task of finding the way to get the Death Eaters into the castle. She didn't have anyone to go to—no one to ask to look after her son and protect him, since in this course of events, Lucius had also been sent to Azkaban after being caught in a raid. So she went directly to Voldemort. Who was not … amused by having someone question his orders."

Severus swallowed. "Voldemort killed her?"

"No, not till today at her violent reaction to Draco's death. At that time he simply cursed her, crippled her, whilst telling Draco the curse would be lifted if and when he succeeded. Draco eventually found the solution with the Vanishing cabinets as he had before, only instead of a small group of infiltrators like before he brought in group after group. They attacked the same day the coup overthrew the Ministry, killing Scrimgeour and making Pius Thicknesse Minister. Severus—Amycus Carrow was the Headmaster over this past year."

Severus' head whipped up, and he stared at Dumbledore, finding a wealth of sadness in those blue eyes.

"You weren't here to protect the students. Cruciatus wasn't simply a sporadic practice you were able to eventually put a stop to before a few months passed. It wasn't a momentary, excruciating pain." Dumbledore gestured towards where the pit lay. "This wasn't the result of Harry or Voldemort's visit precipitating a battle. Cho Chang was the closest thing to a leader the students had left. Hers was … a less martial spirit than Harry's or even Neville's. She tried to hang everything on the law, on reason, among an unreasonable people. Carrow and Voldemort had had enough of her opposition, especially after they found out she and Cedric Diggory had been smuggling accounts of what was happening at Hogwarts abroad, where they were being published. Carrow announced that Cedric, being an of-age wizard, had been executed. He told the assembled students they were going to use Cruciatus on Chang until 'that Ravenclaw brain was mush' then tried to detain her. The students … they'd had enough and much of the staff joined the fight. Few were able to stay out of the way of the melee that ensued. Very few that fought were not killed or captured."

"But this destruction—"

"Carrow panicked when it looked like they were losing and unleashed a spell of such destruction—well, you see the results around you."

"Carrow wanted to put down all sorts of dunderheaded booby traps throughout Hogwarts in case of attack—blow up the school if need be rather than let it be taken against us. I stopped—I stopped him … Dear Merlin." Finding his legs trembling, Severus tried to sit on the remains of one of the benches, only to find he had sat against something hard and lumpy. Gobstones. His mother had been teaching Miranda the game. He rolled them against his fingers, and then, on some impulse he didn't quite understand, put them in his pocket.

"Don't you see, Severus, at every turn, you've been the necessary man. Not the only one. Things would be as bleak without Harry, without Hermione. But you are the keystone on the arch. Your life has been a gift, whether you appreciate the fact or not—a gift not just to yourself, but to others as well. I admit, sometimes it was one that more closely resembled a sack of coal for you than brightly wrapped gifts, especially before Voldemort's defeat and your marriage to Hermione. Still, it was among the greatest of your gifts that you have had great power to affect others. If you withdraw that gift, you are helpless to effect change, to protect those you hold dear."

"No more," groaned Severus, staring down in the direction of the pit that held the lifeless bodies of the students that had been his charge. "I want Hermione. Take me to Hermione, Dumbledore!"

"No."

"By all that is holy, Dumbledore, I swear I will strike you down where you stand. I killed you once, old man, and I will do it again if you don't take me to my wife!"

"You won't like it."

He faltered. "She's—alive, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"Then show her to me."

Dumbledore sighed, and the clearing melted away.  
Although Hermione let Harry lead her away from the corridor, what replaced the sobbing scared Harry. Her face seemed frozen, except for her glittering eyes, an expression that Ron had always called scary.

Just before they reached the hall to her quarters, Hermione took Harry's arm in a bruising grip. "Not a word about this will be said in front of the children. They're not to ever know their father cared so little—" Her mouth twisted.

"Hermione. He—"

"What then? A coward? What am I supposed to tell the children if he never comes out of there?" She pressed her knuckles against her eyes, rubbing them. "I'll never forgive him if he leaves me alone to … No, he won't. He can't. So we'll just have to make things right. Harry, give me something to do. I knew, really. There's no way into that room, so let me help you—"

"Hermione, it's an official investigation—"

"Bollocks. You're family. Severus is family. You're here for him. Don't pretend you're objective. Everyone knows you're not." Her voice broke. "Harry—give me something to do."

"I—" Harry broke off when he saw the group coming towards them. Rita Skeeter, Auror Warrington—and Lucius Malfoy.

"Professor," Warrington said, addressing herself to Hermione, "do you know where your husband is?"

"The Headmaster can't be reached," Harry said.

Malfoy's eyes, closed near to slits, flicked a glance at Hermione. "Are you a professor now, Potter? Or Snape's wife? Strange, but whatever Professor Granger's failings, an inability to speak for herself was never one of them."

"What are you doing here Malfoy? Come to spread Christmas cheer?" asked Hermione.

Malfoy brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his shoulder. "McLaggen has accused your husband of being involved in a conspiracy to cover up the death of his son." A slight smile played over his lips. "It pains me to inform you of this, dear, Severus is an old friend—"

"As in it was a long, long time ago he would have called you one."

"Careful, Madam—"

"It's Professor. My title is Professor."

"I wouldn't scorn friendship where you can find it. As a friend, I convinced the Board to install me as Headmaster on a purely temporary basis, you understand, until we can get this cleared up."

"That won't be long, I assure you, Malfoy," said Harry.

Lucius smirked. "I wasn't aware that you were assigned to this case, Potter."

"I'm a Senior Auror—I can make it my business—that gives me more authority here than you, Malfoy—or you, Warrington."

Warrington swallowed. "Surely, sir, you see how bad it looks if the Headmaster isn't to be found?"

A flash illuminating Harry's face made him blink.

Skeeter smiled at him. "Just a picture for tomorrow's edition of the Prophet." She hooked her fingers as if miming quotation marks. "'Harry Potter is on the case.' Any comment?"

"Yes, I'd be careful what you write. Headmaster Snape is innocent."

"That would be rather a first, wouldn't it?" Skeeter said sweetly.

"Actually," Hermione said, "it's a rather old story, just one you keep missing." With that, Hermione pulled Harry by the arm. "Oh, and Mister Malfoy, good luck trying to get into the Headmaster's Office. As Umbridge found, the castle is quite particular as to who it recognizes as Headmaster."  
When Severus opened his eyes again, he did not recognize where he was. Dumbledore had taken him to some ramshackle shantytown, a huddle of dilapidated tents and other sad, lopsided structures. Here and there, small fires crackled, tended by tiny, hunched children with grime-smeared faces. Some of them wore a few rags that still resembled robes or Muggle clothes. Others were naked, or nearly so. When they saw Severus, they scattered, raising a screaming alarm.

Soon, older people were stumbling out from the things that Severus could not bring himself to call 'houses'. Several of them were in rags as well. Others were better-dressed, but all were skeletally thin, and many were barefoot. Judging by the appearance of their feet as they ran, many of them had been going barefoot for some time.

He didn't chase after them. He was looking for Hermione. At last, he found her, but the sight of her gave him no joy.

She was crawling out of a small tent set somewhat aside from the rest. Her hair was chopped short, unevenly, and it hadn't been washed in far too long. It hung, lank and greasy, into her eyes. Her face, like the rest, was streaked with dirt, her cheekbones standing out in prominent relief from the rest of her face, which had grown shockingly thin.

Her limp hadn't gone.

In fact, her limp had grown much more pronounced, and she stumbled lopsidedly with every step, struggling to keep her balance, unable to run nearly as fast as the rest, who had far outstripped her, and were beginning to disappear into the nearby woods.

He shouted wordlessly, unable to help himself any longer. He was running to her, he realized. He didn't remember beginning to run, but he was almost to her side now.

She didn't stop when he said her name. She kept going, panting for breath as she tried to navigate the circuitous path that led through the makeshift village she apparently lived in.

When she fell, Severus was there to catch her. He closed his arms around her waist, lifting her into the air so easily that, for a moment, he thought he must not have lifted her at all. She seemed to weigh nothing, and he nearly lost his balance, thrown off-kilter by the overexertion of his muscles when he'd gone to pick her up.

"Stop!" she screamed, clawing at him desperately. "Let me go, I'm not a witch! I'm not! I'm not!"

Severus, grunting, managed to get her arms pinned down. "What are you talking about, woman? Of course you're a witch."

"No," she said, her voice increasingly hysterical. "I'm not. I swear, I'm not. You can search me. I haven't any wand. Please, please, just let me go."

"You haven't any wand?" He blinked. "What have you done with it?"

"I—I haven't done anything."

"Of course you have. Did it break? Hermione, what are you doing here? What's going on? Please, you've got to help me, Hermione, I've—"

She stilled, eyeing him suspiciously. "How do you know my name?"

"Of course I know your name. I know everything about you. You're Hermione Jean Granger. You're a Muggle-born witch. Your parents are dent—"

But he couldn't finish. At the words 'Muggle-born,' she had begun to writhe again, clawing at his face now, tearing gouges into it with her fingernails. "I'm not Muggle-born." She gasped for breath, and Severus noticed for the first time the congested gurgle that sounded in her chest each time she inhaled. "I just—I was born in another country, if you must know, and that's why I haven't got papers. Please, you've got to believe me. Don't take me to the Ministry. I haven't done anything wrong!"

He performed a rather complicated maneuver that he had long since perfected in the process of looking after their children, transferring her body to one arm so that he could hold her hands still with the other. "Stop scratching me, harridan. I'm not going to give you to the Ministry."

"Oh," she said. A look of understanding and of animal cunning came onto her face, and she stopped struggling. He set her down. Should she choose to run, it would be more than easy for him to catch her again.

Once on her feet, she stood still as he'd hoped, her eyes fixed on him with a peculiar expression. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't understand."

"Didn't understand what?"

"I thought you were a Snatcher." She made an attempt at a confident, businesslike tone, but it failed—or perhaps he just knew her too well to believe it. She was terrified. It moved him deeply, and frightened him, that his Hermione could find him a stranger and be so terrified of him. He was so caught up in sadness that at first he didn't register what she was doing with her hands …

"What are you doing?"

"I'm—you promise that you won't send me to the Ministry, don't you?" Her hands stilled, clutching the newly-unfastened halves of her … garment … together over her chest. "If you're going to take me to the Ministry, I'd rather you not pretend to be kind beforehand."

He opened his mouth, but the shocked response that formed in his brain came nowhere close to his throat.

Taking his silence for assent, she nodded sharply and opened her hands. The mess of torn, frayed fabric that covered her body fell to the ground, and she stood naked before him. She was cleaner than some of the rest, at least. Her skin was still as white as he remembered. But it had no loveliness to it. There was no glow of health in that skin. She looked like a corpse. Her hipbones jutted out sharply, and he could count each of her ribs. She raised her hands to hold up her small, shrunken breasts for his inspection, and he saw that her arms were pathetically thin.

"Stop," he said sharply, turning his eyes away. His wife she might be, but it was indecent to see her like this, to gaze on her emaciated nakedness. He wanted to vomit. A skeleton that called itself a woman, that's all that she was. And she was standing there, offering him her body in exchange for her life—her filthy, wasted body. The body that had once been Hermione's.

"What?" Her voice was puzzled, frightened. "Do I—do I not please you? Oh God, don't send me to the Ministry. I'm sorry. I'll find someone else for you. I'll do anything. Just don't give me toHim."

"Him?"

"You know I'm forbidden to speak of him," she whispered, her eyes widening. "You're trying to trick me. You do want to take me to the Ministry. Well, I won't go! I'll throw myself to the Dementors first!" She backed away from him, limping horribly with each step, leaving her clothes on the ground rather than taking the risk of moving any closer to him to pick them up.

"Stop this," he said again. "Hermione, I can't—I—" but there was nothing he could say. He turned and ran, retching as he went. He looked for Dumbledore, but, for once, the meddlesome old man was nowhere to be found. Severus was alone, trapped in a world that was the stuff of his every worst nightmare. He searched desperately, but he couldn't see Dumbledore anywhere.

He stumbled and fell, landing hard on his hands and knees, the impact ripping the skin apart even through his trousers. The terrible, twisted image of Hermione seemed to have burned itself into his retinas, into his mind, soiling them. He coughed, his stomach heaving, but there was nothing for him to bring up. He had never eaten—not in this non-life that had swallowed him.

He bent forward, letting his face rest in the barren dirt, overwhelmed. Since the moment he'd learned of the accident, he'd sunk into despair. Now, though, he finally remembered what it was to break. His face was hot and wet, a mess of tears and mucous and soil. Nothing mattered now, if he was stranded here. Nothing mattered but finding a way back to his own Hermione and assuring himself that she never risked so much as a hint of the suffering that she could have endured, had things in their lives together been … different.

"Didn't choose to take her?" said a voice at his elbow. He nearly cried out in surprise, but he recovered himself, glaring at the erstwhile Headmaster as his face slowly dripped back into visibility.

"No, I did not, as you so eloquently put it, choose to take her. She is my wife, not an unpaid whore to be used at my will. She doesn't know me. What is the meaning of this, Dumbledore?"

"Its meaning? Surely you have grasped the basic lesson at this point. You were never such a poor student in your youth."

"Tell me." Severus swallowed, his throat burning painfully with emotions he was, by now, barely able to control. "How did she come to this? How did theworld come to this?"

Dumbledore gave an eloquent shrug.

His voice was unsteady, as he knew it would be even before he attempted to speak. "Tell me, Dumbledore."

"With the Order gone, and the opposition at Hogwarts all killed, there was no resistance left. The wizarding world fell, and fell quickly—to its knees, in abject surrender. Voldemort waited a mere six months after his so-called 'liberation' of the Ministry before he began to wage total war against the British Muggle population. Naturally, the Statute of Secrecy was broken entirely. The revelation that there were witches and wizards living in Britain was one that rocked the world, and when it came out that Britain was not the only country, other wars started as well."

The Headmaster's spectacles glinted in the light, giving him an eerie appearance, as if he had no pupils—merely white, glowing eyes, half-lidded. "In a few places, there have been truces, and even tentative alliances, but those are few and far between."

"You're telling me that the Muggles, they—"

"Hunt witches and wizards, Severus, and burn them."

"Witches and wizards know how to deal with burning," he said immediately, thinking back to his many tedious hours in History of Magic. "It's a basic flame-freezing charm."

"Perhaps in the Middle Ages, when burning meant being tied to a stake in the middle of a pyre, Severus, and with their wand tied ceremonially there with them. The Muggles of today are wiser, or, perhaps, simply more vicious. I think Arthur would have praised their ingenuity. The lucky few who have not had their wands destroyed by Voldemort, and it is very few, have had their wands destroyed by the Muggles if they are caught. There are furnaces built especially for the purpose of eliminating magical folk from the British population. Those who aren't corralled into Voldemort's forced labor camps are herded into Muggle prison camps and slaughtered with as free a hand as any Death Eater ever had."

"Still, it's only fire—"

"Only fire, in an enclosed, superheated metal room, designed solely for the purpose of incinerating witches and wizards."

"I don't believe you."

Dumbledore's eyebrows went up a fraction. "Would you like to see?"

"No."

"I thought as much."

"I would like to go back to Hermione."

The old man gestured wordlessly in the direction Severus had just come from.

"Not that Hermione. I want to see my Hermione. The one I'm married to. The one who's—not that one." Fear clenched around his heart. Suppose he couldn't go back? Suppose that he was trapped here forever, and that his Hermione was gone, as unreal and imaginary as this one had once been? Magic could do things like that, when wielded unwisely. Whether the world had really been altered, or Severus' brains had merely been addled, he was already at a loss for how to cope in this world that was not his.

"I don't know, Severus," said Dumbledore. "Are you sure that all this is not what you want?" His arms moved expansively, seeming to encompass everything that Severus had seen. "It was your wish to be here, after all."

"Get me out. I don't want any part of it. I want my wife and children."

Dumbledore disappeared.

The rest of the world didn't.

He froze where he was, staying still for so long that he lost count of the agonized seconds which had passed. Then, finally, everything disappeared and reality once more rearranged itself.

Severus stood in a small, nondescript room. It could have been behind any door in the castle. There were no decorations on the wall, no rugs on the flagstone floor, and he saw not a single piece of furniture.

There was only the door.

Cautiously, he opened it and stepped out into the hallway. It looked like Hogwarts. Simply Hogwarts. The Hogwarts that he knew and loved, that he was Headmaster over. He gave an exulting cry when he felt the scars at his neck. He moved, trying his muscles, glorying in the familiar aches and twinges that came with unaccustomed stretching and twisting. Straightening his clothes, he realized that even the few Gobstones he'd picked up in the ruins of Hogwarts were gone.

He didn't wait another moment. He turned in the direction of his home, his wife, and his children, and ran, praying to every god he knew of that they were still there, and as he remembered them to be.  
The clock chimed one o'clock in the morning. How was it possible that he'd been in the Room for so long? It had felt like ages, but surely so much time couldn't actually have passed.

He crept through their quarters, assuring himself that all was there, and as he remembered it. Yes—there were Brian's initials, carved into his bedroom door with his wand on his eleventh birthday. There was the much-abused old piano that Hermione had brought from her parents' house, and had insisted that each of the children practice on every day. There, on his desk, lay untidy piles of parchment, many covered with childish scrawls and scribbles, several declaring, in crayon, that they were dedicated to him with love.

Toys were scattered on the floor, some of which belonged to the Potter children. Harry and Ginny had been there, apparently—still were there, he realized, catching sight of a white face and red hair peeking out from beneath a heavy blanket on the couch.

The sight of Ginny sleeping in his front room reminded him of the one sight he had not yet seen, and the one which he longed for most of all. Softly, he opened the door to the bedroom he had shared with Hermione for so many happy years. His life was in ruins, his reputation once again besmirched, he knew that Hermione would stay by him. That, in the end, would be enough. He counted himself lucky to have her … if she was still there—and would forgive him.

She sat at their large shared desk, her back to the door, her head bowed. For a moment, he thought she'd fallen asleep, but then he heard the faint noises that she made, and saw the shaking of her shoulders. She was crying.

He stopped, realizing for the first time what she must have gone through while he'd been wandering through the darkest holes of his psyche. Their family clock lay on the bed, placed neatly atop his pillow. Severus had a feeling she'd put it there to keep herself from looking at it too often. Glancing at it now, he saw that the hand with his name on it rested squarely at 'home,' and he allowed himself a smile.

While he watched her, she straightened up, wiped both eyes with her palms, and then reached for a pair of scissors and a bit of Spellotape. There was a faint rustling of paper as she enclosed a small gift and wrapped it in the same tidy, deliberate manner that she did everything else. Occasionally, she gave a loud sniff. When she had the bow affixed to the top of the box, she set it aside, atop a pile of similarly wrapped boxes.

Only Hermione, he thought, would wrap Christmas presents with the world falling down around her head. He smiled, imagining the conversation she had surely had with Ginny Potter about it. Severus might be sacked. He might have slept with another witch. He might even be dead, but her children were still going to have a regular, happy Christmas morning, no matter what it took.

Her hair was caught up into a rather sloppy knot, from which several thick curls had escaped. They lay on the white nape of her neck as beautifully as if they had been draped by an artist. Her loveliness took his breath away, and suddenly, all he wanted was to seize her in his arms and kiss her. He longed to tell her how intensely he loved her, how much she meant to him, how he wished that he could show to her how different and miserable his own life would have been, had she been the absent one.

Instead, he very quietly drew his wand and whispered a spell. The wrapping paper in her hands folded itself neatly around the box (one that his mother had sent for Brian).

She went very still, her hands still hovering in midair, though the paper had been snatched from them.

"Wife," said Severus, "will you never learn that some things are better done early, and by magic? You are not generally a woman to save things for the last minute."

He could see the flexing of muscles in her neck as she swallowed, slowly lowering her hands to the desk. "My mother always did it this way, and so will I," she said. Her voice was a mere whisper as she took her part in what had become over the years a tender, annual script for them to repeat on Christmas Eve.

"Your mother," he said, his voice as full of helpless passion as it had been on their wedding day, "is a Muggle, who does the best she can with the tools she is given. You are a witch, and you ought to behave like one."

"You're only saying that because you don't know how to wrap a gift with your own two hands."

He had approached, until now he could nearly touch her, could feel the warmth radiating from her back into his chest. He looked down at her thick, coiled hair, and touched it, resting his palm on the side of her head. It was long and full and clean, and her skin seemed to radiate health and well-being. "On the contrary, madam. I pick up my wand with my left hand, I transfer it to my right hand, and I speak the incantation."

"Lazy."

He moved his hands to her shoulders, squeezing them gently, feeling the tension in them. He lowered his head, until his lips were nestled into her hair.

"Severus!" her voice was a gasp, and her hands moved up to grip his, squeezing them so tightly that the blood ceased flowing into his fingers. Just when he'd begun to think of trying to prise her grip a little looser, she let go and spun around, flinging her arms around his waist and burying her face in his stomach, her body heaving with sobs. "Oh God, Severus, I was so frightened you'd left me."

He caught her up in his arms, lifting her off the ground and holding her as tightly as he could, so that it was her turn to wriggle, lest her ribs be cracked with the force of his embrace. It took an effort to lift her this time. She was by no means fat, but she bore the weight of their children in her hips and breasts, and it sent a shiver through him to feel it. "Hermione. My Hermione." He buried his face in her neck, kissing it passionately, finally sure that she was real—his real Hermione. "I thought that I'd lost you."

She drew back in surprise. "Afraid that you'd lost me?"

"Albus, apparently not satisfied with inhabiting portraits, gave me a visit and tried playing Jacob Marley."

"That's not—"

"It seems that anything in the Room of Requirement is possible." Was it, though? Did perhaps one drop of Somnus reach his lips? Even the Gobstones he'd hung onto as proof of the reality of what he'd experienced had vanished. Tightening his hold on his Hermione, he realized it didn't matter. He remembered his helplessness at the sight of the other Hermione. Never again would he willingly put himself into a situation where his family was beyond his reach and protection.

"You utter, git," said a voice affectionately from the doorway. "I think Hermione and I both have several more gray hairs because of you—usually James is responsible for them, but you—"

He turned to see Harry at the door, a big grin on his face. He held up the evening edition of the Daily Prophet, only the headline was not the one that Severus expected. It read, "Potter Solves Case: Lucius Malfoy Arrested." Harry walked over and put the newspaper on the desk.

"I take it, then, that you're not here to arrest me?"

Harry shook his head, a smug look on his face. "I do believe I've just discharged one of my life debts to you. I think you were ahead? Not that I keep count."

Severus scowled at Harry, then drew the paper closer to him and began to read. "Draco turned in his own father?"

"He came to me, Severus, I didn't even have to go and find him. Draco may not completely approve of how you and Neville have been 'Mugglelizing' the school—but he does care about you. And he didn't care for how Lucius used Scorpius to give him information about the school, the curriculum. That's how he knew exactly when, where and how to switch the boomslang for redwort. How he knew Ernie's routine well enough to Confound him, then Obliviate him, so he wouldn't notice the switch. Draco didn't appreciate his son being used the way he had been." Harry pushed up his glasses with a finger, then glared sternly at his old teacher. "The only reason you're not getting a lecture from me—"

"Harry—" Hermione's tone was a warning.

"—is because Hermione would probably hex me—and it's Christmas." Harry's voice roughened. "But for Merlin's sake, next time, before you rip all our hearts out—yes, even mine, you git—try to remember you have friends and ask—"

"I believe you said you'd spare me?" Snape said.

"Dennis Creevey, among others, leaked the story the Daily Prophet was going to run. Before they knew it, they had quite a crowd on their doorstep, using some tried and true Muggle protest tactics. Ron and George were there, you know."

"Selling Weasley Wheezes."

"More like organizing the mayhem. Did the part about friends register?"

"Hermione's friends."

"Who are also yours. And a lot of those people—at that protest, busy sending owls to me and leaking information like a sieve, are your Slytherins, you know. It's going to be one hell of a party—"

"What?"

"Well, I sent Ron an owl, of course, to let them all know you're back, and cleared. I think the whole lot should be arriving any minute—"

Severus could hear a rising cacophony of voices nearing. "Potter," he said angrily, "it's past midnight!"

"Happy Christmas, Severus and Hermione!" cried a chorus of voices from the front room, as Ron opened the door, revealing a press of people so thick that Severus wasn't sure they'd be physically able to get out of the bedroom to greet everyone who had come.

He grabbed tightly onto Hermione's hand, determined that no matter what else happened this night, he wouldn't let go.

The End


End file.
